A communication network includes network elements that route packets through the network, predominantly in line card hardware. Network packets may comprise carrier traffic and management traffic. Carrier traffic is typically data communicated by users of the communication network. On the other hand, management traffic is typically traffic associated with a provider of the communication network used for provisioning network equipment, tracking network status, monitoring alarms, and other network management functionality. Both carrier traffic and management traffic are communicated over the same physical medium using the same interfaces.
In many instances, communication networks may employ link aggregation. Link aggregation (e.g., IEEE 802.1AX-2008) may generally describe the practice of using multiple network cables or ports in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limits of any one single cable or port, and to increase redundancy for higher availability. In link aggregation, a group or set of ports may be combined and represented as a single logical port to other components of the network system. Various switching elements of the network system may “see” the aggregated ports (known as a “link aggregation group” or “LAG”) as a single logical communication port in the routing tables or databases of network elements external to the LAG.
Despite the functional advantages of LAGs, LAGs may present challenges to communication of carrier traffic and management traffic. For example, carrier traffic is often load balanced among the various member ports of a LAG by using hashing algorithms or other methods for distributing such traffic across a LAG's member ports. However such hashing algorithms or load-balancing methods may not be conducive to flow of management traffic. To illustrate, if carrier traffic is Internet Protocol (IP)-based, and management traffic is based on standard multicast Media Access Control (MAC), all management traffic may default to the same physical port of a LAG. Because management traffic may consume large bandwidth (e.g., presence messages such as continuity check messages (CCMs) with fast timers), a dedicated physical port for all management traffic of a LAG may lead to bottlenecks, slow performance, and other undesirable effects.